News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

Author
Topic: Fossil Fuel Propaganda Modus Operandi (Read 9932 times)

Think About it Most Americans consider NPR an independent media organization, so it might surprise you that one of its biggest corporate sponsors is the American Natural Gas Alliance, a front group that exists only to promote some of the worst energy polluters in America.

The ANGA has been an NPR corporate sponsor for months, using its airtime to promote the misleading ‘think about it’ campaign that is in fact a promotion for the dangerous and destructive drilling process known as fracking.

NPR’s financial dependence on the fracking industry could be fouling its news coverage, just like fracking fouls up our air, water and climate. Fracking puts America on a path toward a bleak energy future, with polluted land, flammable tap water and earthquakes.

Meanwhile, clean, green energy sources like wind and solar can provide 99 percent of our electric, transportation and manufacturing power needs. No fracking required. even better — every time we choose renewable energy over oil, coal and gas, we reduce emissions, lower the cost of energy and create jobs.

When trusted news outlets like NPR take money from ANGA and repeat their deceptive marketing claptrap — on OUR airwaves — we have to question their objectivity. Sign up here to tell NPR that when it comes to fracking, don’t even think about it.

Turns out that’s okay, at least according to game theory analyses by researchers at the University of Lisbon. Their models suggest that punishment by global institutions has no effect. They also say that global summits actually

impede cooperation ( Risk of collective failure provides an escape from the tragedy of the commons).

what emerges is a much more cooperative global regime for combating climate change.

Interestingly, though, the local actors must be stimulated by an understanding that global warming means catastrophe… big time. Thus, the remarkable bottom line to change is essentially an old bumper sticker tagline (link added):

Nevertheless, the math of how people play games suggests that successfully curbing carbon pollution will rely on the old adage: think globally…

We show that a bottom-up approach, in which parties create local institutions that punish free-riders, promotes the emergence of widespread cooperation, mostly when risk perception is low, as it is at present3, 7. On the contrary, global institutions provide, at best, marginal improvements regarding overall cooperation. Our results clearly suggest that a polycentric approach involving multiple institutions is more effective than that associated with a single, global one, indicating that such a bottom-up, self-organization approach, set up at a local scale, provides a better ground on which to attempt a solution for such a

Another international climate conference is coming up, this one being held in Poland. There isn’t much optimism regarding what is to come out of this, and it seems there’s no reason for optimism.

What is needed is a stronger focus on creating action on the local level. What is needed is an emphasis on communicating the great risks and costs that come with global warming, while showing people local solutions that they can implement in their cities.

People are starting to realize this, but the message needs to get out to more and more of us, especially the ones who are motivated and assertive enough to push for meaningful change.

The Kochs' Brazen Buyout of Our Democracy Is Right Up There with the Worst Oligarchs in American History

Spending hundreds of millions to buy as much political power as they can for a project that could earn them over $100 billion.

October 23, 2013

To understand the present, you have to understand the past, which brings us to the story of William A. Clark.

William A. Clark (Would you buy a used car from this man? Do you have any idea what life was like for his copper mining slave/employees? Do you think that his descendants owe some money to we-the-people for the horrendous pollution caused by said copper mining? I think so.)

Clark was one of the so-called Montana “Copper Kings” of the 1800’s.

Copper King Mansion in Butte

After making millions in the booming mining industry, and trying his hand in the electric, newspaper, banking, and railroad industries, Clark set his sights on political office.

Clark had always had a lifelong ambition of becoming an elected official, and of achieving the fame and power that came with it.

In 1899, Clark made a serious push to become a U.S. senator from Montana. Back then, U.S. senators were chosen by their respective state legislators.

So one afternoon Clark walked into the Montana State Legislature, and announced that he would be standing in the back of the room, holding envelopes filled with thousand-dollar bills.He said he’d give those envelopes to anyone who voted for him.

Enough legislators voted for him and took his money that Montana sent him to Washington, D.C. as their senator for the 1900 legislative session.

But Clark’s bribery scheme was so public and brazen that even the largely corrupt U.S. Senate was horrified. They refused to seat him after reading newspaper stories about his passing out thousand-dollar bills to get elected.

And it was the notoriety of Clark’s naked bribery attempt in Montana, well reported in newspapers across the country, that helped lead to the passage of the 17th Amendment, which says that U.S. senators are elected by the people instead of by state legislatures.

With all this notoriety, Clark quickly became public enemy number one in the early 1900’s. Speaking about Clark, Mark Twain once wrote that, “He is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a chain and ball on his legs.”

While William A. Clark may have died back in 1925, his willingness to corrupt the American democracy and political process is alive and well today. Just ask the Koch Brothers.

Charles and David Koch, worth a combined estimated $68 billion in net worth, are among the driving forces behind the corruption of our democracy.

Between 1998 and 2008, Koch brother-controlled foundations gave more than $196 million to organizations that favor polices that would further pad the wallets of the two brothers.

In that same time period, Koch Industries, owned by the two brothers, spent $50 million on lobbying and handed out $8 million in PAC contributions.

The Kochs are also behind groups like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which both gave and continue to give major financial support for the Tea Party movement.

And FreedomPartners, a Koch-affiliated organization, has doled out grants worth over $230 million to a variety of conservative organizations, Tea Party groups, and front-groups that oppose Obamacare.

This all brings us to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Recently, the Koch Brothers have been throwing their billions at lobbyists, front-groups, and lawmakers that support the fossil fuel industry and the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Koch Brothers are the fossil fuel industry’s largest donors to congressmen and women who sit on the committee that oversees the Keystone XL pipeline.

In 2010 alone, the Kochs and their employees gave over $300,000 to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

At the same time, the Kochs have given more than $60 million to climate denial groups over the past 15 years.

Spending hundreds of millions to buy as much political power as they can for a project that could earn them over $100 billion.

So why are the Kochs handing out so much money to groups and lawmakers that support the Keystone XL pipeline and America’s toxic addiction to fossil fuels?

Money. And lots of it.

According to a new report released by the International Forum on Globalization, the brothers stand to make up to $100 billion in profits with the approval of the pipeline.

Keep in mind they’re only worth $68 billion. This could double their net-worth.

The report found that the Kochs and Koch Industries hold up to 2 million acres of land in Alberta, Canada, which is the proposed starting point of the Keystone XL pipeline.

And many Koch Industries subsidiaries stand to make millions from the pipeline's construction, including Koch Exploration Canada, which would profit from oil exploration on its land, and Koch Supply and Trading, which would benefit from the trading of oil derivatives.

With a possible $100 billion windfall down the road, more than double their combined total fortune today, it’s no surprise that the Koch Brothers are doing everything possible to make the Keystone XL pipeline a reality.

Their Republican allies in Congress even tried to use the Keystone XL pipeline as leverage in the government shutdown, demanding that it be approved before they would end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.

Meanwhile, you and I are stuck with the byproducts of the Koch’s relentless pursuit of money and power.

Koch Industries is already one of the top ten polluters in the United States, pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, driving global warming and climate change.

And if the Keystone XL pipeline is finished, it will make things even worse.

Synthetic crude oil from tar sands generates three times the pollution of regular crude oil production, and is extremely poisonous. If there were ever a leak from the pipeline, the environmental and human damages would be horrific.

The ghost of William A. Clark is alive and well in the form of billionaires like the Koch Brothers, who are corrupting our political process, while destroying the environment and poisoning us.

We can’t continue to let the likes of modern-day William A. Clarks continue to buy off the American political process.

Thom Hartmann is an author and nationally syndicated daily talk show host. His newest book is The Last Hours of Humanity.

THREE INCORRECT STATEMENTS BY ENERGY EXPERT NICOLE FOSS in July of 2012 when the ENERGY MARKET activity you will read about below was in progress SINCE 2008.

German Utilities Hammered in Market Favoring Renewable Energy

Tino Andresen, Bloomberg

August 12, 2013

Dusseldorf, Germany -- Germany, Europe’s biggest electricity market, is beating up its traditional utilities. RWE AG and EON SE are getting hurt by falling power prices and a shrinking market share this year. They’re set to report second-quarter earnings this week just as RBC Capital Markets said both may need to raise capital.

“Lower earnings for RWE and EON have knock-on implications for the balance sheet of both companies,” John Musk, an analyst at RBC Capital in London, said last week. “The market has yet to factor in the longer-term earnings impact of German power prices,” which have dropped about 27 percent in a year.

Across Europe and some of the U.S., utilities that a decade ago dominated markets now struggle to cope with lower prices exacerbated by subsidized renewables that don’t pay fuel costs. The pain is most acute in Germany, which led the world installing solar farms and has the largest offshore wind plans. Clean energy also has preference over fossil fuels in European wholesale markets, a job killer at traditional utilities.

EON of Dusseldorf and Essen-based RWE are considering halting coal and gas plants with capacity exceeding 20,000 megawatts and can supply 21 cities the size of Cologne, risking some of the combined workforce of more than 10,000.

“A significant part of our business model is now facing new challenges,” RWE Chief Financial Officer Bernhard Guenther said in an interview, without being specific about halts or jobs. “Whatever we do in terms of cost and capex-cutting won’t fully compensate the profit loss we see in conventional power generation.” A RWE spokeswoman said there was nothing to add.

Merkel Response

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has said it wants to reform the country’s clean-energy subsidy law after the Sept. 22 elections and also rework the design of the country’s power market. The German renewable boom has caused “huge problems for the system,” Merkel said June 12 in Berlin.

RWE shares slumped to a decade-low last week and EON did likewise last month, as analysts reduced earnings forecasts.

“We have never seen mothballing to this extent,” Susanne Nies, head of energy policy and generation at the Eurelectric AISBL lobby group, said by phone from Brussels. Europe’s power demand will be lower in 2020 than in 2010, and utilities have “massively overestimated demand for gas-fired power.”

Musk said the two may have to tap investors for cash in the next few years, estimating that RWE may have a capital need of about 2.5 billion euros ($3.3 billion), and EON may require 4 billion euros to maintain its rating, in a note to investors.

EON Reporting

EON tomorrow is expected to report first-half adjusted earnings almost halved from a year earlier, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg, while RWE will report on the following day.

Both utilities were among the biggest decliners in Germany’s benchmark DAX index today, with RWE falling as much as 1.9 percent to 20.91 euros and down 1.5 percent at 12:59 p.m. in Frankfurt trading. EON dropped as much as 1.8 percent to 12.03 euros and was down 1.4 percent at the time.

The retrenchment is mirrored in the U.S., where burgeoning rooftop solar panels eat into the market share of utilities from New York to Hawaii. :icon_mrgreen: In Japan, the government is opening the market, giving traditional suppliers such as Tokyo Electric Power Co. pressure from new rivals.

Germany’s four largest power producers had only invested enough in clean energy to control 4.9 percent of renewable capacity by 2012, according to Bremen-based Trendresearch GmbH, and the country will increasingly rely on wind and solar to fill the gap left by the nuclear phaseout. The share of renewables in generation more than tripled to 22 percent in 2012 from 2000.

Shares Slump :emthup: :icon_mrgreen:

“The adaptation of the conventional power-plant fleet is indispensable because renewables get preference on the grid,” said Thomas Deser, a portfolio manager at Union Investment GmbH, which holds EON and RWE.

EON and RWE’s cost-cutting strategies haven’t stopped stock slides. Together have lost about 76 percent of the $200 billion combined market value they had in early 2008.

RWE has slumped 32 percent this year in German trading, the most among companies on Europe’s STOXX 600 Utilities index. EON has lost 13 percent. Both are unlikely to recover any time soon, according to Commerzbank AG.

“We have intact, long-term downsize trends at EON and RWE,” Petra Kerssenbrock, a technical analyst at Commerzbank, said by phone from Frankfurt.

Profit Forecast

At EON, adjusted profit may drop 40 percent this year, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. “For newer power plants there is always a latent risk for writedowns,” Chief Financial Officer Marcus Schenck said in an interview in May. EON kept its unprofitable Irsching 4 and 5 gas-fired generators in Bavaria running only after a compensation deal with regulator Bundesnetzagentur and grid operator TenneT TSO GmbH signed in April.

RWE’s income has declined for the past three years and is forecast to fall again next year.

“It’s all about shutting power plants with a negative cash flow,” Patrick Hummel, an analyst at UBS AG, said by phone from Zurich. Unlike a decade ago when utilities reduced capacity to push up electricity on the market, the current halts “won’t work to drive the power price,” he said.

Independent Producers

Independent power producers such as Wpd AG, Juwi AG and S.A.G. Solarstrom AG invested earlier and more heavily in wind and solar power, cutting into the share supplied by RWE and EON.

German year-ahead power price dropped 27 percent over the past 12 months, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg. The contract, a European benchmark, traded at 36.70 euros a megawatt-hour today.

While utilities across Europe have seen demand dwindle, those in Germany are also contending with a phase-out of nuclear energy. RWE and EON acknowledge the decision to close all reactors by 2022 forces them to abandon plants they had counted on to produce income for years.

Smaller competitor EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG said last month it will shut four plants in Marbach and Walheim following “a drastic fall in revenue.” The utility expects earnings from generation and trading to plunge as much 40 percent this year.

The shift from fossil fuels has also hurt other operators in the country. Vattenfall AB, a Swedish utility with coal and nuclear plants in Germany, announced plans July 23 to split off non-Nordic units after writing down $4.6 billion. It will have to cut investments and push through deeper cost cuts, it said, partly blaming the failure of nations to align policies.

“The idea of an integrated European energy market is in shambles,” Chairman Lars G. Nordstroem said last month. “Energy politics is becoming increasingly national. Everyone looks at their natural assets and their policies.” :emthup: :icon_sunny:

Why do I bring up what appears to be ancient history? Because they are BACK with the same lie about a "New Ice Age" for EXACTLY the same reason they started their propaganda in the 1970s, to keep renewable energy from pricing fossil fuels out of the market! FOSSIL FUELERS HERE --->

I have written about the Marshall institute propaganda mill and how Big Oil has "defended" itself with lies and duplicity as well as bought and paid for "scientists".

Feeling threatened again, the fossil fuel industry is back with a new bit of ice age poppycock, but with a twist. The propagandists are arguing that back in the 1970s, the scientific consensus believed an ice age was at hand and they have been proven WRONG. Consequently, we CANNOT BELIEVE THEM NOW when they say global warming is with us.

The only "MINOR PROBLEM" with that bit of clever doubletalk is that the CONSENSUS in the 1970s WAS NEVER that a new Ice age was coming.

In fact, those were the early propaganda efforts by big oil that represented a minuscule quantity of credentialed WHORES paid to lie among a tiny group of scientists and a several NON-SCIENTIFIC media stories with NO SCIENCE behind them WHATSOEVER. You know the drill: Top scientists say blah, blah (no names) . Top research lab says blah blah (no research lab named) . The media are EXPERTS at spin used to defend moneyed interests (in this case, the fossil fuel industry).

Here's the REAL STORY of what went down in the 1970s:

Quote

What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?

1970s ice age predictions were predominantly media based. The majority of peer reviewed research at the time predicted warming due to increasing CO2.

Climate Myth...

Ice age predicted in the 70s

"[M]any publications now claiming the world is on the brink of a global warming disaster said the same about an impending ice age – just 30 years ago. Several major ones, including The New York Times, Time magazine and Newsweek, have reported on three or even four different climate shifts since 1895." (Fire and Ice)

Mainstream Media

What was the scientific consensus in the 1970s regarding future climate? The most cited example of 1970s cooling predictions is a 1975 Newsweek article "The Cooling World" that suggested cooling "may portend a drastic decline for food production."

"Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend… But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century."

A 1974 Time magazine article Another Ice Age? painted a similarly bleak picture:

"When meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe, they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."

Peer-Reviewed Literature

However, these are media articles, not scientific studies. A survey of peer reviewed scientific papers from 1965 to 1979 show that few papers predicted global cooling (7 in total).

Significantly more papers (42 in total) predicted global warming (Peterson 2008). The large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than 1970s scientists predicting cooling, the opposite is the case.

Figure 1: Number of papers classified as predicting global cooling (blue) or warming (red). In no year were there more cooling papers than warming papers (Peterson 2008).

Scientific Consensus

In the 1970s, the most comprehensive study on climate change (and the closest thing to a scientific consensus at the time) was the 1975 US National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council Report. Their basic conclusion was "…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…"

This is in strong contrast with the current position of the US National Academy of Sciences: "...there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring...

It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities...

The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action."

This is in a joint statement with the Academies of Science from Brazil, France, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom.

In contrast to the 1970s, there are now a number of scientific bodies that have released statements affirming man-made global warming. More on scientific consensus...

•National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

•Environmental Protection Agency

•NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies

•American Geophysical Union

•American Institute of Physics

•National Center for Atmospheric Research

•American Meteorological Society

•The Royal Society of the UK

•Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

•American Association for the Advancement of Science

Reasoning Behind Cooling Predictions

[b]Quite often, the justification for the few global cooling predictions in the 1970s is overlooked. Probably the most famous such prediction was Rasool and Schneider (1971):[/b]

"An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5°K."

Yes, their global cooling projection was based on a quadrupling of atmospheric aerosol concentration. This wasn't an entirely unrealistic scenario - after all, sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions were accelerating quite rapidly up until the early 1970s (Figure 2). These emissions caused various environmental problems, and as a result, a number of countries, including the USA, enacted SO2 limits through Clean Air Acts. As a result, not only did atmospheric aerosol concentrations not quadruple, they declined starting in the late 1970s:

SO2 emissions

Figure 2: Global sulfur dioxide emissions by source (PNNL)

Similarly, if we now limit CO2 emissions, we can also eventually get global warming under control.

Summary

So global cooling predictions in the 70s amounted to media and a handful of peer reviewed studies.The small number of papers predicting cooling were outweighed by a much greater number of papers predicting global warming due to the warming effect of rising CO2.

The matter of world shaking importance for our energy needs that it leaves out is CHEMURGY (more on chemurgy - making anything, now made from hydrocarbons, from plant based carbohydrates after you have become thoroughly depressed by the "we are all going to die without oil" infographic ).

Are we doomed without fossil fuels?

ACTUALLY, we are DOOMED if we KEEP BURNING fossil fuels! SAY WHAT?

1.The burning of fossil fuels is destroying the biosphere humans depend on to survive. We have no other option but to stop burning them and work to bioremediate the biosphere with actions that include, but are not limited to, returning to 350 ppm of CO2

2. At more than $ 72 a barrel for crude oil (a price left behind long ago in the constant rise of price per barrel), all fuels, lubricants, pharmaceuticals and plastics now made from hydrocarbons can be made cheaper AND WITHOUT ADDING POLLUTANTS TO THE ATMOSPHERE from duckweed refineries.

If you’ve been following the climate change denial lobby, you probably know until a few years ago one of the most notorious climate change deniers in the oil industry was Exxon Mobil. The company was a major funder of the lobbying organization Heartland Institute, a leading force in anti-climate management efforts.

Koch Brothers lobby against production tax credit for wind.By 2007, Exxon Mobil was publicly disavowing its denialist position and the company cut ties to Heartland, but since then the Koch brothers have more than made up the difference (for those of you new to the topic, Koch Industries has been challenging climate management on a wide array of fronts).

As far as the relationship between AEA and the Koch brothers goes, while the organization is not required to disclose its sources, our friends over at SourceWatch have connected the dots for us.

According to SourceWatch, AEA was founded in 2008 by Thomas Pyle, who also serves as its current president. Pyle’s roots are in the petrochemical industries lobby, which includes work for Koch Industries.

Pyle is also the President of AEA’s sister organization, the Institute for Energy Research (IER), which according to a report by Greenpeace continues to receive both direct and indirect support from the Koch brothers.

They Write Letters

AEA’s anti-wind tax credit letter is brief and to the point, positioning itself as a grass roots effort with 100 signing organizations representing “millions of Americans.”

Agelbert NOTE: The old ASTRO TURF TRICK.

That positioning is reinforced by AEA’s website, which features the following warning on its home page…Thanks to Big Wind the hidden cost of wind energy may get even MORE expensive.

However, among the many grass roots style names on the list is a generous helping of “Big” organizations openly supported by the Koch brothers, including the 60 Plus Association, Americans for Prosperity, and Freedomworks.

As for those groups with grass roots-sounding names, it’s worth noting that several are Tea Party affiliates. Though positioning itself as a grass roots movement, the Tea Party is a corporate creature as revealed by a recent peer-reviewed study that examines the decades-long linkage between the use of astroturfing by the tobacco lobby, anti-climate management efforts, and Koch brothers funding, which resulted in the founding of the Tea Party in 2002.

The Tea Party affiliates on the list include the Greenfield Area Tea Party, the Mansfield North Central Ohio Tea Party, the Outer Banks Tea Party, the State Coordinator (OH) Tea Party Patriots, and the Georgia Tea Party, Inc.

We’re not saying that a few bad apples spoil the whole barrel, but if anyone out there is familiar with the money behind any other “grass roots” organizations on the list, feel free to drop us a note in the comment thread.

*Clarification: The American Energy Alliance is a signatory to the letter, which is part of an Americans for Prosperity project.

Following up on our article, Key Votes to Watch: Climate, Fracking, Coal Exports, here are the results from the 2013 election.

Fracking Votes in Colorado

There's great news from Colorado, where three of four cities voting on fracking moratoriums approved them.

Most importantly, Lafayette voters passed a Community Bill of Rights, which permanently bans oil and gas drilling. It also prohibits corporations from storing or transporting chemicals, water or any byproduct of drilling in the city. It bans any infrastructure that facilitates the extraction of oil, gas or nuclear, and bans any extraction of city water for those purposes.

Voters in Fort Collins and Boulder passed five year moratoriums on fracking with strong margins. The vote is being recounted in Lafayette where there is just a 13 vote spread.

Proponents were outspent 40-1, with the oil and gas industry pouring in a whopping $900,000 in contrast to $26,000 raised by activists.

Community Bill of Rights were also on the ballet in three cities in Ohio. It passed in Oberlin, but were voted down in Youngstown and Bowling Green.

Coal Exports in Washington State

Here too, fossil fuel interests took a licking.

All four progressive candidates for Whatcom County Council won. They are all against issuing the permit needed to build a coal export terminal. The race was the most expensive ever for this tiny county of 200,000 people. The environmental community spent about $1 million!

The $600 million coal terminal is one of three planned in Oregon and Washington.

Tar Sands Referendum, Portland, Maine This important referendum lost by only 192 votes and would have passed easily if not for big oil's money.

If the referendum passed, it would have permanently blocked exports of tar sands oil from Portland's harbor, effectively blocking the route through Maine.

The proposal would have amended Portland's code so that a terminal to store, process and export tar sands oil could not be built.

The Petroleum Institute was a major contributor to the $600,000 to defeat the referendum. Grassroots activists raised just $42,000.

As is often the case, people strongly favored the proposition until opponents framed the debate around misinformation - the "huge" economic and job losses that would result.

But activists say they will be back with a second referendum and the head of Portland's city council says he will work with them to pass a law that would block tar sands exports. We will keep you updated on what ensues.

Here's the background.

GMO Food Labels in Washington State

Since Washington requires mailed-in ballots, only 60% of the vote has been counted, but as of now, this referendum also lost, 54.8% to 45.2%.

Had it passed, Washington would have been the first state to require labels on food that contains GMO, breaking through the logjam of threats of lawsuits from Monsanto in particular.

Just two months ago, polls showed that two-thirds of voters favored the GMO labeling proposal, but that changed once big money started rolling in. Opponents ended up spending triple that of GMO activists. "Win or lose, this is a long war, and labeling is inevitable," David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, told Seattle Times. Dr. Bronner's was the biggest donor for GMO labels, contributing $1.7 million.

Internal documents exposed publicly Friday have pulled back the curtain on the Canadian oil industry's war against carbon-curbing regulations in a bid to protect its profit margin over the planet.

Emails between the Canadian federal government and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP)—released through provincial freedom of information laws and publicly posted by Greenpeace Canada researcher Keith Stewart—reveal that last spring the oil industry successfully delayed a proposed carbon tax increase of $40 per ton in the province of Alberta by lobbying the Canadian federal government.

“The industry in these documents is clearly saying delay, delay, delay and then do as little as possible,” Stewart said Friday in an interview with the Globe and Mail. “And the federal government seems to be taking that as marching orders.”

In the exposed emails, CAPP officials vigorously oppose "costly new burdens on the industry and the economy." Numbered among their concerns is that the profit margin of the tar sands industry could be harmed.

They insist the proposed tax will hurt their bottom-line without helping their public image. "The objection to the oil sands is ideological... 2 if the 40/40 guidelines were enacted, oil sands opponents would claim that they too were insufficient."

CAPP urges the government to forestall any immediate action, insisting, "more communication, public awareness campaign of current policies, regulations, and environmental issues is required."

The industry's efforts appear to have been successful so far at stalling a carbon tax increase. Large carbon emitters currently pay $15 for every ton of carbon yet are reimbursed large portions of these penalties through provincial tax write-off laws.

Alberta has been slammed for its relatively weak laws and high levels of emissions, thanks in part to its dirty tar sands industry.

_____________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Senator Whitehouse Tears the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page to tiny pieces! He exposes their DENY, DOUBT and DELAY on absolutely ALL climate issues from the 1970s until now. NEVER, and I mean NEVER, believe you will get ANY TRUTH about factual science when COSTS for polluting industries are on the table! Listen to the quotes! Then read the DOUBTS voiced HERE at the DD by Snowleapard "WE JUST DON'T KNOW" and others. Listen to the exact same words you have read from Snowleapard and Mking coming from the Wall Street Journal Editorial page. It's ORGANIZED. It's LOCKSTEP. It's PROPAGANDIST MESSAGE DISCIPLINE! IT's a PACK OF LIES AND DOUBLETALK! That's the PLAYBOOK 1. Deny the science 2. Question the motives 3. Exaggerate the costs UNTIL they can no longer DELAY the regulations or legislation. THEN they change their tune as if they had NEVER DENIED the SCIENCE!

1960s book on the left that revealed advertising lies. On the Right, the Book that Reveals The Greatest Predatory Capitalist Crime in History by some of the World's Largest and Most Powerful Corporations.

Agelbert NOTE: This book details in agonizing and projectile vomiting detail WHO DID THE CRIME to avoid liability for the CLIMATE TRASHING CRIME! For those TWO HUGE CRIMES, they need to DO THE TIME and PAY THE FINE!

The COVER-UP is ALWAYS worse than the CRIME. WHY? Because the benefit of the doubt existed as to their motives when they were trashing the planet. Once they decided to avoid liability with lies and duplicity, they are A PRIORI admitting they KNEW they were TRASHING the PLANET AND DID NOT CARE!

“Climate Cover-Up documents one of the most disgusting stories ever hidden about corporate disinformation. What you’ll discover in this book amounts to proof of an intergenerational crime.”DAVID SUZUKI, Author of The Sacred Balance and Good News for a Change.

“This book explains how the propaganda generated by self-interest groups has purposely created confusion about climate change. It’s an imperative read for a successful future.”LEONARDO DICAPRIO, Actor and Producer

“To those of us who have been unknowingly made to turn a blind eye to the terrifying and true facts about global warming, there’s no time left for ignorance. Please read this shocking and incredible book, learn how we’ve been manipulated, get angry and take action.”NEVE CAMPBELL, Actor and Producer

“Forget about the crime of the century – this probably qualifies as the crime of the geological epoch.”BILL MCKIBBEN, Author of Deep Economy and The End of Nature

“A compelling, sometimes chilling explanation of how public safety has been sacrificed on the altar of private interest.”CHRIS MOONEY, Author of The Republican War on Science

"If you want the full, detailed story of the manufactured opposition to climate science and climate action, look no further than James Hoggan's comprehensive and compelling Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming (Greystone, 2009). It's the real story on climate change and the media, with footnotes."ALEX STEFFEN, World Changing

Through impeccably document analysis, Climate Cover-Up exposes the well-oiled propaganda campaign designed to manufacture dissent and uncertainty about the science of global warming. It is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of democracy.”ANDREW WEAVER, Author of Keeping Our Cool: Canada in a Warming World

“An important and disturbing book about the lies and corrupt language that government and industry still employ to dismiss the facts on global warming.”ANDREW NIKIFORUK, Author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent

“Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming is a remarkable deconstruction of what he argues is a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign whose goal is to set the agenda in climate policy by discrediting legitimate science and manipulating public perceptions of the scientific evidence...I have no doubt that Climate Cover-up is going to stir up controversy, particularly in the United States where many of these strategies were deployed and fine-tuned.”STEPHEN HUME, Vancouver Sun

"Climate Cover-Up should be as big and influential as the Hidden Persuaders was; it exposes how truth gets twisted, how lies become opinions worthy of editorial pages, how Exxon greases the whole process."LLOYD ALTER, Tree Hugger

"James Hoggan's new book Climate Cover-Up (Greystone Books) is a must-read for anyone concerned about the biggest, most pervasive effort ever at manipulating the media by some of the world's largest and most powerful corporations."BILL TIELMAN, The Tyee

“Hoggan’s book is a thoughtful and sustained exposure of a movement which has done great harm. I read it with close interest and shared his dismay. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand how denial has had such a charmed run. His presentation is painstaking and reasonable. There’s nothing shrill about it, and his justifiable anger is relatively muted.”CELSIAS, Clean Techies

"“The writing is a well-researched investigation into the continuing fabrication of the defense of Climate Change “skepticism”, which amounts to a long narrative of invention, first of outright denial of the science of Global Warming, then of foot-dragging delay being urged on all Governments.”Jo Abbess

“Their new book is a chilling description of greed, conflicts of interest and the oil and coal industries' shenanigans; it picks up where other books, like Ross Gelbspan's "The Heat Is On" (1997) and "Boiling Point" (2004), left off.”Truth Out

“The book does a very thorough job of documenting the history of sometimes despicable attempts by various vested interests and contrarians to discredit climate science.”Biodiversivist

“In brief, this is a must-read book. I’ve read a lot of climate/energy books over the past couple of years (trying to glean how to get the message across to the public); this is one of the two best books on the subject you will find, even if you aren’t involved in the issue at all. “Consider it required reading for anyone remotely interested in a livable climate, or defending public interest from industry. Although, fair warning: You will probably be angry (or angrier) at the status quo after reading this. It certainly makes me want to take a stronger stand than before… maybe I can find a way to link studies of PR and denialism into my grad studies…”BRIAN D, Left as an Excercise

“This book will open your eyes, it will raise your ire and, most especially, it will inspire you to take back the truth — to end the Climate Cover-up. This is a must-read book.”Climate Progress

“This book isn't some silly bit of finger-waving by activists,but a concise, well-researched (thanks in large part to my friend, Kevin Grandia) piece of journalism by people who have been immersed in the PR industry for decades.”HARRY TOURNEMILLE, The Threshold

The growing fracking industry is “yielding gushers” of campaign donations for congressional candidates — particularly Republicans from districts with fracking activity — according to a new report [PDF] from the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The report, “Natural Cash: How the Fracking Industry Fuels Congress,” examines a period spanning from 2004 to 2012. In that time, CREW finds, contributions from companies that operate hydraulic fracturing wells and fracking-related industry groups rose 180 percent, from $4.3 million nine years ago to about $12 million in the last election cycle.

These donations are flowing to members of Congress at a time when some legislators are trying to increase regulation of fracking, a process in which drillers inject a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals into the bedrock to release oil and natural gas reserves. The most serious of these legislative efforts is the FRAC Act. First introduced in 2009, the act would require EPA regulation of the industry and would force fracking companies to disclose the chemicals that they inject under high pressure into the ground.

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill are stalled in committee.

“So far, the industry has successfully fended off almost all federal regulation of fracking,” CREW’s report notes. The report adds that the biggest increase in donations from the fracking industry came between 2010 and 2012, when Congress was particularly active on fracking issues.

Candidates from districts where fracking is concentrated — CREW identifies 94 such districts — experienced the biggest windfall. (CREW built an interactive map showing the industry’s contributions over time in states home to fracking.) The industry’s political contributions to those candidates rose 231 percent, from $2.1 million to $6.9 million. That’s nearly twice the increase in their contributions to senators and members of Congress from districts without any fracking activity. CREW identified

ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Chesapeake Energy as the industry’s three largest donors.

The fracking industry’s increase in giving far outstrips the increase in political donations from the oil and gas sector at large, which rose 104 percent over the same period. The whole oil and gas sector gave $35.6 million to congressional candidates in last year’s election.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) was head and shoulders above his fellow candidates in donations from the fracking industry. Barton accepted more than half a million dollars — $100,000 more than any other candidate. In the past, he chaired the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and he sponsored legislation in 2005 to exempt the fracking industry from the Safe Drinking Water Act. A version of that bill became law and prevented the EPA from exercising key oversight over fracking activity.

Republicans in general benefited from the industry’s largesse far more than Democrats. “Nearly 80 percent of fracking industry contributions to congressional candidates went to Republicans,” the report notes. Republican candidates from fracking districts saw their donations from this sector go up 268 percent. According to the report, only six of the top 50 recipients of fracking industry contributions among current members were Democrats.” Only one Democrat — Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana — **** the top 10 list of fracking money recipients.